Discussion of the Background
The video recorder is nowadays a very widespread machine. It is above all used to view cassettes pre-recorded by specialised editors. In general these machines allow the automatic recording of television transmissions and, for this purpose, have available means for programming such recordings in advance. However the programming of a video recorder involves operations which are often considered complex by the user; furthermore care must be taken that a cassette is in fact inserted into the machine. This is why video recorders are used less to record television transmissions than to view prerecorded cassettes.